Nice to meet you, what brings you in today, Jennifer?
I broke a tooth right here.
I’m Kevin Nelson, I’m a dentist,
I practice in Anderson, Missouri at a community health
center called Access Family Care.
Anderson, Missouri is a very small town,
about 2,000 people in the Southwest corner of Missouri.
The people I see at my clinic are mostly just people from
small town America.
They are really good, wholesome people.
My name is Karen Dempsey, and I work for Park DuValle
Community Health Center in Louisville, Kentucky.
In a clinic setting, you see more patients than you would
in a private practice.
You see a variety of patients.
So I’m very content working in the clinic setting.
We don’t turn anyone away.
I would not trade it for anything.
Are you ready?
When I was graduating dental school,
I knew I wanted to help in a rural setting.
Help some people that maybe could not get dental help in
the traditional manner.
Every day we have people that walk in with toothaches
and emergencies.
We have a sliding fee scale.
And so a person can come in with a toothache,
get an emergency exam, a picture and a tooth extracted
for $57.
By me encouraging them, showing them how to brush,
I get a lot of feedback from them as well as them coming
back with improvement on the tooth.
How is that tooth doing?
Not so good.
Not so good?
The people that I work with, when they come in with an
abscessed molar or even wisdom teeth that normally would be
sent to an oral surgeon, our patients don’t have any other
option and so I do a lot of surgeries and I do some
minor orthodontia.
In dental school I did not like root canals,
but now that I’m out practicing,
I love them.
I really enjoy dentistry and its an opportunity for me to
provide for my family, being able to come out of dental
school with a good job, with a good salary,
plus the loan repayment.
It’s made that transition from school to working,
very smoothly financially.
I am happy that I did apply for the National Health Service Corps.
I had a $50,000 loan to pay back.
So I was ecstatic, very grateful.
National Health Service Corps loan repayment program was
perfect for me.
After you do your first two year commitment,
it’s on a year by year basis and as long as you have loans
to repay, you can apply again, as long as you are working at
a center that qualifies.
The National Health Service Corps is the way to go.
The opportunities are there around the country,
the clinics are clean, they are well run.
My patients really appreciate our clinic and the work we do
there and the work I do as an NHSC member.
It’s been a great environment for me to become a better dentist.
